Owarimonogatari II

Overview

While Owarimonogatari season 2 isn’t quite the end of the Monogatari series, I would have been fine if it was. That’s not to say that I don’t want more content from my favorite anime, but this season felt like a conclusion that I could accept.

There are three arcs within this season: Mayoi Hell, Hitagi Rendezvous, and Ougi Dark. The season starts off with a Mayoi arc so you know it has to be good.

One final note before I get into the first arc; all three arcs of this season have amazing OP songs, however, they’re unfortunately only featured in the Blu-ray release of the season and so aren’t in the series if you watch it somewhere like Crunchyroll.

Mayoi Hell

The Mayoi Hell arc pics up from where the final episode of Koyomimonogatari left off. Koyomi was killed by Izuko Gaen and sent to the innermost circle of Hell for forming a pact with a demon in the form of the vampire Kiss-Shot (Shinobu).

Now you may be wondering, why is Mayoi in the deepest circle of Hell? Was it because she led people astray as a lost cow apparition?

Not quite. In fact, Mayoi was sentenced to Hell, but not the deepest circle like Koyomi. Instead she was sentenced to stack rocks for the rest of eternity for dying before her parents because apparently that’s something to be blamed for.

Mayoi, being the lovable rascal she is, snuck out of her circle and went to the deepest portion of Hell in order to greet Koyomi whom she heard was coming shortly. She then tells Koyomi that she has a plan to revive him and Koyomi follows her down a path of his memories.

At the end of the path they meet Teori, who you may recall was an apparition specialist killed by Yotsugi in Tsukimonogatari. However, like Yotsugi, Teori had actually been dead for a long time and was a living puppet at the time Koyomi met him.

Teori has actually been working with Izuko and the rest of the apparition exterminating gang on a master plan that involved killing Koyomi to sever his bond with Shinobu, then reviving him as a regular human again.

A rope, which is actually a snake, drops down from above and Koyomi is instructed to grab onto it. While Koyomi believes there are others who should be revived instead of him, Mayoi refuses to listen and convinces him to allow himself to be revived.

At the last second, he grabs Mayoi with his legs and pulls her up with him back to the world of the living.

Hitagi Rendezvous

Hitagi Rendezvous is more of a setup for the Ougi Dark arc than an actual arc of its own. In this arc, Koyomi and Senjougahara go on a date to the planetarium in the morning, then go bowling and to karaoke in the afternoon.

The first important part happens when Koyomi falls asleep at the planetarium and has a dream in which Ougi tells him that she needs to talk to him and that he shouldn’t fall for Izuko’s tricks.

After the first part of their date is over, Senjougahara turns the next two stops on their date into a competition, which Koyomi wins both of. The loser has to obey one command from the winner, and as expected Koyomi doesn’t really ask for anything.

However, once the date is complete, Koyomi tells Senjougahara that he forgot to get her a present and that he’ll make it up to her. She suggests that he should obey one command from her to make up for it, which is for him to call her by her first name, Hitagi.

While the Mayoi Hell arc didn’t exactly include a nice, neat ending for Mayoi, the Hitagi Rendezvous was a good end to the story of Koyomi and Hitagi (as I’ll now refer to her). This is the first reason why I mentioned I’d be fine if this season happened to be the last.

Ougi Dark

Before I get into what happens in the Ougi Dark arc, let me first mention some things that I left out of my summaries of the previous two arcs because they relate more to this one.

Firstly, after Mayoi was brought back to the world of the living, there’s still the issue of the “darkness” swallowing her up which is the original reason she passed on to Hell in the first place since she’s an apparition without a purpose. Mayoi, Izuko, and Shinobu stay to discuss what to do next while Koyomi goes on his date.

Secondly, Ougi is found at Koyomi’s house when he gets back from his date with Hitagi and tells him that while she is a force that corrects injustice, she is not the “darkness.” She also asks for Koyomi’s help with confronting Izuko.

From this point, I think I’ll just describe how the season ended rather than going through a chronological summary.

As per Izuko’s plan, Mayoi becomes enshrined as the goddess of the snake shrine so she won’t be chased by the “darkness”. Meanwhile Koyomi must confront Ougi and reveal to her that her true identity is an apparition created by himself.

Ougi was created from Koyomi’s self-doubt and feeling that he was never able to solve everyone’s problems in the best way. Once this is revealed, the “darkness” appears to swallow Ougi, but Meme Oshino suddenly appears with Hanekawa and fixes the situation so Ougi can live.

Finally, Shinobu, now in her full-power Kiss-Shot form since she was severed from Koyomi upon his death, decides that rather than being a legendary vampire, she would rather return to living in the shadow of her master, Koyomi.

While Koyomi’s quote to Shinobu at the beginning of their time together in Kizumonogatari was “You’ll never forgive me, and I’ll never forgive you,” he now says to her, “If you were to die tomorrow, i’d be fine with tomorrow being the last day of my life. But if you decide to live through today, i will also choose to live through today.”

With that, all of the character arcs that were left open up until this point are now complete.

The season ends with Koyomi running off to help another girl in need, in typical Koyomi fashion because that’s just the kind of guy he is.

Conclusion

It’s no surprise that Owarimonogatari Season 2 is the highest rated of the Monogatari series entries on MAL, and it should also come as no surprise that it’s a 10/10 for me.

While I saw the conclusion with Hitagi as a bonus, I don’t think I would have felt content with the ending if either Mayoi or Shinobu was left out. I think many would agree that Shinobu is the female lead of the series, but I would argue that Mayoi is just as important to the series.

At some point in 2018 the next entry in the Monogatari series, Zoku Owarimonogatari, should be released.